And to think, I was embarrassed to even post its name

On Tuesday, Phin saw single bottles of the Sam Adams Longshots series available in Whole Foods.  By Wednesday, they were gone.

Clearly, we needed to buy a six pack of these guys before we lost our chance.

Wednesday night I had a chance to try a couple of them: the Blackened Hops and the Honey B's Lavender Ale.

Blackened Hops:
Yikes, this one is not my style at all.  All I got was hops, hops and more hops.  I wound up getting to the point where I just had to drink it as fast as I could.  To someone who enjoys the American microbrewery style of hopping the shit out of everything, I can see how this would be a likable beer.  Frankly, I disliked it to the point where I can't even rate it.  It gets the first I that I've ever given.

Honey B's Lavender Ale:
I was nervous as hell when I opened this one.  I thought I was about to drink Bed Bath & Beyond in a bottle.  My nerves weren't really helped when I took a whiff of the beer and got...nothing.  No lavender, no honey, no hops or malts.  I truly couldn't smell anything.

I've always been a believer that the "aroma" wasn't really all that important in a beer because it's almost always very similar to taste, but I now realize my mistake.  If nothing else, the aroma lets you know what the hell you're about to get yourself into.  I took a sip and found that I actually liked this one.  It's got a pretty strong honey flavor, but that's a flavor that's always worked for me.  Combined with the light hops and the lavender flavor, this was a surprisingly good beer.  I give it a B.

Finally, tonight I drank the Friar Hop.  I was saving it for last because I anticipated it being my favorite, but as it turns out I actually liked Honey B's Lavender Ale better.  The beer is a Belgian Ale with an American twist--namely, the hops.  While a lot of hop heads get bored with the different Belgian style ales, I think it's best to leave them as they are.  The hops were interesting, but in my opinion they made things worse.  I give it a B-.

Have you had any beers from this or a prior Longshots series? What did you think of them? Let us know in the comments!